If you love listening to music while away from home but have a limited budget to spend on those tunes, consider downloading LimeWire to find new music and share music with others.

Anyone who came of age during the late 1990s and early 2000s will likely remember the name LimeWire. LimeWire was one of the original peer-to-peer file sharing networks. This essentially means that you can share the music on your computer with others at the same time that you download music from their own computers. Though some assume that LimeWire went the way of the dinosaur, the program is still alive and kicking with millions of users registered around the world.

After downloading the program, which usually only takes a few minutes, you can open it and search for the content you want. The search box lets you search by album name, song title or artist name. Unlike other P2P programs that limit your searches to just music, this program lets you search for videos too. It's a great way to find free copies of some of your favorite flips and video clips that you cannot find anywhere else.

When you do a search, LimeWire will tell you how many seeders and leechers are on each file found. Leechers refer to the number of people downloading that same file, while seeders refer to the number of people who have that file available for download. If the file has more seeders, it will download faster, but a larger number of leechers may slow down the process.

Once you select a file, LimeWire gives you the option of selecting where that file goes. This makes it easy to find all your downloaded content later. It also lets you know when your file finishes downloading. You'll appreciate that the program gives you an estimate as to how long it will take to download each file.

Despite being one of the more popular P2P sharing programs, the number of people using this program dropped significantly over the years. That limits the amount of content you can find and increases the average download time. The FBI now monitors the network closely to ensure that users do not share copyrighted content. Though you won't find as many files available now as there were in the past, LimeWire is still a solid P2P sharing program.

Pros:

Puts thousands of audio and video files right at your fingertips

Can search for music by artist, song or album title

Shows you the estimated download time for each file

Lets you select where all your downloads go

Informs users of leechers and seeders to help them decide which files to download

Cons:

Fewer users mean longer download times and less content

FBI monitors users for the spread of copyrighted content

Requires that you turn off sharing to block the access others have to your computer